WBEZ | Mike Roykohttp://www.wbez.org/tags/mike-royko
Latest from WBEZ Chicago Public RadioenChicago books that would make great movies http://www.wbez.org/blogs/leah-pickett/2013-06/chicago-books-would-make-great-movies-107621
<p><p><img alt="" ap="" class="image-original_image" devil="" in="" kirsty="" photo="" src="http://www.wbez.org/system/files/styles/original_image/llo/insert-images/Leonardo%20DiCaprio.jpg" style="width: 620px; " the="" title="Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star as serial killer H.H. Holmes in the film version of &quot;The Devil in the White City.&quot; (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) " white="" /></p><div class="image-insert-image ">When <em>The Devil in the White City&nbsp;</em>hit bookshelves in 2003, readers gobbled up the historical non-fiction story of the architect behind Chicago&#39;s 1893 World&#39;s Fair and the serial killer who lured countless victims to their deaths in a nearby hotel.</div><div class="image-insert-image ">&nbsp;</div><div class="image-insert-image ">Leonardo DiCaprio <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/02/leonardo-dicaprio-serial-killer-film" target="_blank">secured the film rights</a> in 2010, and rumors swirled that DiCaprio himself would play the man who murdered and dissected over 200 people: Dr. H.H. Holmes.</div><div class="image-insert-image ">&nbsp;</div><div class="image-insert-image ">Three years later, the film remains &quot;in development,&quot; which is another way of saying &quot;this project has been put on hold so Leo can work with his old pals <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/" target="_blank">Baz</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/" target="_blank">Marty</a>&nbsp;first.&quot; Still, I wouldn&#39;t be surprised if DiCaprio tapped Martin Scorsese to direct (they have made five movies together over the past decade) and decided to go <a href="http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/12/17/leonardo-dicaprio-calvin-candie-django-unchained/" target="_blank">full-evil</a> for his next Oscar-baiting role.&nbsp;</div><div class="image-insert-image ">&nbsp;</div><div class="image-insert-image "><em>The Devil in the White City&nbsp;</em>is a mesmerizing read, especially for Chicago history buffs, and ripe for a grisly film adapation. However, many other powerful books with Chicago settings are equally deserving of the page-to-screen treatment.</div><div class="image-insert-image ">&nbsp;</div><div class="image-insert-image "><img alt="" class="image-original_image" devil="" flickr="" in="" kristi="" src="http://www.wbez.org/system/files/styles/original_image/llo/insert-images/flickr_wf.jpg" style="float: right; height: 300px; width: 300px; " the="" title="The Statue of the Republic, created to commemorate the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, sits in Jackson Park near Lake Shore Drive on the south side of Chicago. The 1893 World Fair is the setting for the Erik Larson novel, &quot;The Devil in the White City.&quot; (Flickr/Kristi Logan)" white="" />So, in no particular order, here is my top 10 list of the best Chicago books with cinematic potential:</div><p><strong><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/devilinthewhitecity/home.html" target="_blank">The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America</a>&nbsp;</strong>(Erik Larson, 2003) I hope that they construct at least part of the set for the 19th century World Fair at Navy Pier, similar to the<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/timakimoff/8684523990/" target="_blank"> dysptopic carnival</a> recently erected by the crew of another Chicago-based film, Veronica Roth&#39;s <em>Divergent.&nbsp;</em>The director will most likely turn to CGI to create that epic first Ferris Wheel, but enlisting an actor like Robert Downey Jr. to play George Ferris Jr. (they kind of <a href="http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/10535/who-should-play-burnham-and-olmstead/#.UbasRJUlZSU" target="_blank">look alike</a>, don&#39;t they?) would be real-life marvel enough for me.&nbsp;</p><p><strong><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Boss.html?id=FQDwrB6lnxMC" target="_blank">Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago</a>&nbsp;</strong>(Mike Royko, 1988) The Showtime series&nbsp;<em>Boss,&nbsp;</em>starring Kelsey Grammar as a corrupt Chicago mayor, was unofficially yet&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2803415/posts" target="_blank">obviously based on</a> former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley. However, the show was cancelled after very low-rated two seasons, likely because it veered too far in the direction of outlandish Shakespearean soap opera&nbsp;instead of digging into the ample <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-the-case-against-2.html" target="_blank">historical dirt</a> that producers were probably too frightened to touch. Perhaps a film adaptation of Royko&#39;s scathing and immensely compelling biography of the late Daley Sr. would be brave enough to go there.</p><p><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle" target="_blank">The Jungle</a>&nbsp;</strong>(Upton Sinclair, 1906) This one is kind of cheating, since a silent film version of the book was made in 1914 and later&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_(1914_film)" target="_blank">lost</a>. Still, Sinclair&#39;s groundbreaking exposé of corruption in Chicago&#39;s meatpacking business during the early 20th century, hailed by writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle" target="_blank">Jack London</a> as &quot;the&nbsp;<em>Uncle Tom&#39;s Cabin</em> of wage slavery,&quot; would be a sure-fire Oscar contender in the hands of a director like David Fincher or Danny Boyle.&nbsp;</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Pays-Maurice-Possley/dp/0425188671" target="_blank">Everybody Pays</a>&nbsp;</strong>(Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan, 2002) Forget Al Capone&mdash;Chicago&#39;s deadliest hitman, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Aleman" target="_blank">Harry Aleman</a>, is the kind of monumental figure that A-list actors would kill to play. Pair a riveting street-to-courtroom script from <em>Chicago Tribune </em>co-writers Possley and Kogan with a young Al Pacino type, and this true-story gangster film could be a huge hit.</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lazarus-Project-Aleksandar-Hemon/dp/1594483752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1370917980&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+lazarus+project" target="_blank"><strong>The Lazarus Project</strong></a>&nbsp;(Aleksander Hemon, 2008) Not to be confused with the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464041/" target="_blank">horrible Paul Walker movie</a> of the same name, Hemon&#39;s award-winning novel about tensions between&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Lazarus-Project-Aleksandar-Hemon/dp/B001QFZLOS" target="_blank">Chicago immigrants and police</a> at the turn of the 20th century eerily echoes modern-day events (i.e. the death of Trayvon Martin) and provides a sweeping canvas for gritty cinematic vision to take hold.</p><p><b><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Trumbull_Park.html?id=sL6wAAAAIAAJ" target="_blank">Trumball Park</a>&nbsp;</b>(Frank London Brown, 1959) Brown&#39;s highly underrated account of the first black families to integrate Chicago&#39;s <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2461.html" target="_blank">Trumball Park housing project</a> in the 1950s recalls the easy book-to-film conversion of&nbsp;<em>The Help</em>, except a film version of this story hasn&#39;t been made yet. Still, in the hands of a director like Lee Daniels and a charismatic actor like Denzel Washington in the lead role of Buggy Martin, the moving story of a man protecting his family from race riots in&nbsp;<em>Trumball Park&nbsp;</em>could translate to a modern-day movie masterpiece.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_Mango_Street" target="_blank"><strong>The House on Mango Street</strong></a>&nbsp;(Sandra Cisneros, 1984) While this coming-of-age novel is made up of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_Mango_Street" target="_blank">stand-alone vignettes</a> rather than sequential chapters of a continuing narrative, Cisneros&#39; rich and poetic source material&mdash;filled with humor, charm and acute observation&mdash; is an indie filmmaker&#39;s dream. Told from the perspective of a young Latina girl who longs for a better life but struggles to leave her family behind, <em>The House on Mango Street&nbsp;</em>is an enchanting collection of stories that would shine just as brightly on the big screen.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/47th-Street-Black-Bayo-Ojikutu/dp/0609808478" target="_blank"><b>47th Street Black</b></a>&nbsp;(Bayo Ojikuto, 2003) Ojikuto&#39;s debut is a stunning and incendiary work of fiction that hits all too close to home: the story of two black teenagers whose rise in Chicago&#39;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/47th-Street-Black-Bayo-Ojikutu/dp/0609808478" target="_blank">gangster-driven ghettos</a>&nbsp;is &quot;just as swift as it is brutal.&quot; With the amount of media attention we&#39;ve received for our gang violence over the past year (the &quot;Chiraq&quot; episode of&nbsp;<em>Vice&nbsp;</em>being the most recent example), a film version of one of the best black American novels since 1940&#39;s&nbsp;<em>Native Son&nbsp;</em>could open millennial eyes even wider.</p><p><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_the_Golden_Arm_(novel)" target="_blank">The Man with the Golden Arm</a>&nbsp;</strong>(Nelson Algren, 1949) Okay, this one is <em>really&nbsp;</em>cheating&mdash;a well-received <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048347/" target="_blank">film version</a> of this book starring Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak was released in 1955. Still, some remakes are better than their original films (for example: Cronenberg&#39;s&nbsp;<em>The Fly&nbsp;</em>and Scorsese&#39;s&nbsp;<em>The Departed</em>) and this beautifully-written novel about a heroin junkie chased by card sharks might make an even better movie today.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/John-Cappas-Tall-Money-Louis/dp/1477261524" target="_blank"><strong>Tall Money</strong></a>&nbsp;(John Cappas, 2012) Does that name ring a bell? At the age of 21, John Cappas was a Chicago drug lord and <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&amp;id=8139291" target="_blank">one of the most infamous cocaine dealers in the U.S.</a> during the mid to late 1980s. His shocking autobiography chronicles these early years, including a bust by the feds in 1988 and a 45-year jail sentence (reduced to 15 years on appeal) that lasted until his release in 2003. Today, Cappas runs a hot dog stand in Markham, IL called <a href="http://johnnysweeneewagon.com" target="_blank">Johnny&#39;s Wee Nee Wagon</a> and regularly speaks to students about the dangers of drug abuse. And with Cappas&#39; connections in the movie business, it&#39;s only a matter of time before Hollywood comes knocking.</p><p>Which Chicago books would you like to see adapated for the silver screen?</p><p><em>Leah Pickett writes about popular culture for WBEZ. Follow her on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/leahkristinepickett" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/leahkpickett" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or <a href="http://hermionehall.tumblr.com" target="_blank">Tumblr</a>.</em></p></p>Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:00:00 -0500http://www.wbez.org/blogs/leah-pickett/2013-06/chicago-books-would-make-great-movies-107621The alienhttp://www.wbez.org/blogs/bez/2012-10/alien-103500
<p><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F65262385&show_artwork=true"></iframe><div class="image-insert-image "><img alt="" class="image-original_image" src="http://www.wbez.org/system/files/styles/original_image/llo/insert-images/Murdoch%20Flickr%20antphotos.jpg" style="float: left; width: 423px; height: 317px;" title="(Flickr/Anthony Theobald)" />In his famous novel, <em>1984</em>, George Orwell, wrote this: &ldquo;Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date&hellip;all history was scraped clean&hellip;&rdquo;</div><p>We cannot scrape history clean. In 1984 Rupert Murdoch bought the <em>Sun-Times</em>, paid $90 million for it. And because Murdoch had an unsavory reputation, more than 60 of us who worked there walked out the door.</p><p>I walked out with, of course, Mike Royko, who called Murdoch an &ldquo;alien&rdquo; and said he published papers that no self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in. I walked out with Zay Smith, who will be joining me in a few minutes.</p><p>So I walked out&hellip;remembering how I had been through something like this, but much worse, before, in 1978, when the <em>Daily New</em>s died.</p><p>The day before the death, which took place on March 4, 1978&hellip;March 4, the birthday of the city of Chicago&hellip;Mike wrote of the end, using softball as his analogy: &ldquo;When I was a kid, the worst of all days was the last day of summer vacation, and we were in the schoolyard playing softball, and the sun was down and it was getting dark. But I didn&#39;t want it to get dark. I didn&#39;t want the game to end. It was too good, too much fun. I wanted it to stay light forever, so we could keep on playing forever, so the game would go on and on. That&rsquo;s how I feel now. C&#39;mon, c&rsquo;mon. Let&#39;s play one more inning. One more time at bat. One more pitch. Just one? Stick around, guys. We can&#39;t break up this team. It&#39;s too much fun. But the sun always went down. And now it&#39;s almost dark again.&rdquo;</p><p>Darkness came: The <em>Daily News </em>died.</p><p>And so, Murdoch did his damage to the <em>Sun-Times</em> in just a couple of years and now it is said he is eying the <em>Tribune </em>or the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>.</p><p>Odd, he still likes newspapers, because we live in an era when newspapers are not an essential part of most people&rsquo;s lives. People have other means of getting the news, or so they would tell you. The war against newspapers is bloody, claiming more victims every day and making many believe that there will come a day when you cannot hold a newspaper in your hands.</p><p>Bill Newman wrote the front page obit for the <em>Daily News </em>and in times of trouble or Murdoch I remind myself of what he wrote. He wrote: &ldquo;A newspaper dies, but newspapering goes on. Life goes on, the sequel and all the tomorrows after that.&rdquo;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p></p>Mon, 29 Oct 2012 15:34:00 -0500http://www.wbez.org/blogs/bez/2012-10/alien-103500